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​While this event happened many years ago, the details remain
vivid and representative, perhaps, of what so many others within clinical
engineering have also experienced.In
some ways it also epitomizes the invisible effectiveness that we have and
continue to bring to healthcare.

At the time, our medical respiratory ICU had a centralized
mass spectrometer that sampled patient gases and was absolutely crucial to the patient
care provided by this unit. As such, our CE department was extremely sensitive
to the importance of this system and always did our best to keep it
functional. Despite these efforts, the
system experienced a critical component failure that shut down the entire
system. While we immediately and
frantically sought a replacement part, the only source was from the European
OEM. All we could do was wait. Understandably, the MRICU staff was blasting
us regularly to get the system up and running NOW – but all we could offer was
that ‘the part is on order’. Well after
about two weeks the unit’s pulmonologist medical director understandably lost
it and convened an administrative meeting where I was summoned to come and
explain what the *^*uk was going on. Knowing that I was about
to get verbally castrated, I reviewed the past two years of service history on
this device – with our early, now primitive, but still very effective CMMS, and
was not surprised but most comforted to see that we had somewhere around an 85%
same-day service response on this device. Yes, over the prior two years, every
time this device went down, our staff had it up and running within the same day
85% of the time. I made a simple
histogram plot of this metric and brought it to the meeting. As expected, the first half of the meeting was
spent ripping me and my extremely dedicated and competent staff a host of new
orifices. I then brought out my service
histogram – and in a less than an appropriate and tactful manner (as I was a
bit pissed by this time) – said
something to the effect “if you can find anyone to service this machine better
than we have been doing - bring them in”.
That ended the meeting with the medical director still upset but he also
seemed to come away with an entirely new appreciation and respect for what we
and our silent warrior BMET’s had been doing.

Indeed, the better in-house CE departments become the more
invisible they also tend to appear. Maybe, it is this twisted irony that will
eventually best define us but also emerge as one of our greatest liabilities as
well . . . ?; nonetheless, happy Global
CE day to us all.​

Comments

Appreciation - from Yadin David

Larry is sharing with us practical example of day-to-day contribution CEs are making all over the world. We just need, like Larry, to share and educate others about what we do. That's why the Global CE Day is celebrated every year on October 21st. Go to Global CE Day website to watch live streaming of the opening ceremony from Chengdu, China on Saturday October 20th (it will be Sunday (10/21) morning in China). The link will be provided at http://global.icehtmc.com/